Learning from Disasters

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In order to be able to build back better, we need to
understand what caused the hazard that occurred
to become so disastrous for the people it affected.
This involves not only studying why houses were
vulnerable to collapse, but also the underlying
causes for that; these lie in the vulnerabilities of
people themselves. What happened in the Alto
Mayo earthquake, described in the box, right,
explains why. Although a study of housing revealed
that some building technologies were more
resistant than others and that certain residents
and local builders had the capabilities to construct
well, within those technology categories there were
variations too. These often resulted from people,
who were getting poorer, being no longer able to
afford to build or maintain their houses well.
Vulnerability is now receiving more attention,
not just in the context of disaster reduction,
but also with respect to issues such as drought,
food security and increasingly climate change.
It is not enough, though, to only know people’s
vulnerabilities, or weaknesses. We also need
to explore their coping capabilities, because
these are the strengths on which to base better
reconstruction. In the case of the Alto Mayo,
one coping capability was the local knowledge of
resistant building technologies.
Vulnerabilities and assets – which

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